Reverse Billing in Online Search

ABSTRACT

There is disclosed reverse billing in online search. A telephony server may receive a request from a user to cause a telephone call to be established between the user and a merchant. A notice to the merchant may be generated. The notice may include an offer to establish a telephone call with the user in exchange for payment of a definite fee. An acceptance of the offer may be received from the merchant. A first voice communication leg with the user and a second voice communication leg with the merchant may be bridged to establish the telephone call between the user and the merchant. The definite fee may be appear on the merchant&#39;s bill for telephone service.

RELATED APPLICATION INFORMATION

This patent application claims priority from Provisional PatentApplication No. 60/629,224 filed Nov. 17, 2004, Provisional PatentApplication No. 60/641,547 filed Jan. 4, 2005 and Utility patentapplication Ser. No. 11/097,640 filed Apr. 1, 2005, all of which areincorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

The following related patent applications are hereby incorporated byreference in their entirety:

a. application Ser. No. 10/614,394 filed Jul. 3, 2003 entitledDisplaying Telephone Numbers as Active Objects;

b. application Ser. No. 10/691,982 filed Oct. 22, 2003 entitledApplication Independent Telephone Call Initiation;

c. application Ser. No. 10/821,467 filed Apr. 9, 2004 entitled TelephoneCall Initiation Through an On-Line Search;

d. application Ser. No. 10/821,701 filed Apr. 9, 2004 entitled TelephoneCalling Interface; and

e. application Ser. No. 10/840,889 filed May 7, 2004 entitled Displayingand

Activating Telephone Numbers.

NOTICE OF COPYRIGHTS AND TRADE DRESS

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. This patent document may showand/or describe matter which is or may become trade dress of the owner.The copyright and trade dress owner has no objection to the facsimilereproduction by any one of the patent disclosure as it appears in thePatent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwisereserves all copyright and trade dress rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to reverse billing of phone calls.

2. Description of the Related Art

A. Search Listings

In a February 2001 survey when asked where their online purchasesoriginated, 55% of the 2,288 U.S. respondents indicated “searchlistings”. (NPD Group) The proliferation of the Internet has created amassive consumer marketplace driven by the technology of search engines.Second only to email, web searching is the most popular activity of U.S.Internet users. (U.S. Department of Commerce) The emergence of searchlistings as the superior online branding medium in profits andeffectiveness has given rise to a new type of marketing strategy—searchengine marketing.

More and more companies are seeking creative ways to increase traffic totheir web sites. One of those methods involves increasing companyexposure and ranking in search listing results. In another report, itwas found that 92% of online consumers use search engines to shop forand purchase items on the Internet. (NPD Group) The same report showsthat good search engine rankings are two to three times more effectivein generating sales than banner ads. (NPD Group)

Search engines have become one of the most effective means of connectingconsumers with the products and services they seek. With so muchbusiness dependent on the output of search listing results, searchengines and other types of listing services such as web portals andInternet Yellow Pages (IYP), are seeking new ways to capitalize on theirtechnology.

B. The Cost-Per-Click Model

Cost-per-click embodies the interactivity of hyper-linking and theWeb—the advertiser pays only for the page views that were clickedthrough from ads or links on a publisher's site. Cost-per-click is atrackable and provable method that generates leads for the advertiser ina cost effective manner.

Cost-per-click (CPC) marketing (also referred to as PPC, or Pay PerClick marketing) is based on the bid-for-placement advertising model.Cost-per-click search engine marketing essentially allows a merchant to“pay” to have its web site listed on result pages of major searchengines in the form of text links and/or ads. These links are oftencalled Paid Listings, Sponsored Links, Sponsored Listings, and FeaturedListings—all of which will be referred to as Paid Listings. In general,the higher a merchant's bid, the closer to the top of the Paid Listingsresults the merchant's web site advertisement is placed. Therefore, if amerchant's ad has the highest bid, the merchant's site listing willappear at top of the Paid Listings results page. If the merchant's bidis the second highest, then the merchant's advertisement will appearsecond, and so forth.

For the major CPC engines, the top three to five bid positions are theones that receive the highest amount of distribution across their searchpartner networks. When search engine visitors click on a CPC ad, theyare sent to the advertiser's web site. CPC advertisers are only chargedwhen someone clicks on the advertisement and visits the advertiser's website.

CPC search listings are growing for two reasons: (1) The CPC model givesadvertisers the ability to reach prospects when they're activelysearching the Internet for goods and services; and (2) Advertisers caneasily measure their return on investment (ROI). The result is amutually beneficial relationship enabling merchants to drive moretraffic to their web sites through effective advertisement, while searchengines capture revenue in return for their lead generation technology.CPC strategies allow merchants to work within their budget and quantifythe results of their advertising effort.

While the CPC marketing strategy has proven its worth to many merchantswith a web presence, it alienates merchants that do not have webexposure in the form of e-commerce, or simple company-profile web sites.As a result, many of these merchants rely more heavily on localcommunity exposure rather than broad web exposure. Local exposureincludes traditional marketing mediums such as television, newspapers,magazines, traditional yellow pages, billboards, etc. Despite thediversity of available exposure mediums, the most common element presentin all forms of advertising is simply a telephone number. The telephoneremains one of the most common and effective forms of business tobusiness and consumer to business communication. While the Internet isgrowing in popularity year by year, the Internet penetration rate isonly at 68.8% as of July 2004 (Neilsen/NR), compared to telephonesubscribership at 94.1% of American households. (FCC/Bureau of theCensus)

C. The Rise of the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)

Advancement in the digital age has catapulted the once static yellowpage book listings into the Internet realm, offering merchants yetanother medium of exposure. Traditional yellow page book listings havebeen migrated to the web to form an ever-growing network of InternetYellow Pages (IYP).

Today, IYP directories are playing a pivotal role in providing theconsuming public access to everything from where to buy a pizza to whereto find a qualified plumber. It has been reported that there were morethan 1.5 billion references to IYP in 2001. (Yellow Pages IntegratedMedia Association) Of those referencing an IYP, 59% made a contact and60% made a purchase or intended to do so. Coupled with search enginetechnology, IYP provides an undeniable benefit to advertisers. Theinformation merchants present in IYP ads is user-initiated and isperceived as an information resource rather than an advertisement. Forthis reason, average response rates to IYP listings are in the range often times higher than other forms of online advertising.

D. The Market Problem

One advantage to IYP when compared to traditional search engine listingsis that merchants do not need to have a website to advertise. Adistinction between IYP and traditional search engine listings lies insearchers viewing categories of listings, such as “plumbing” or“restaurants”—not necessarily keyword results. While click activity andpost-click behavior in IYP listings are consistent with the CPC model,nearly 75% of responses to IYP listings are made as phone calls. (Spring2003, Harris Interactive) This becomes problematic for the CPC marketingstrategy since a phone number is not “click-able” with traditional webbrowsing, and phone calls are not readily trackable with traditional weblistings. With traditional web browsing there is no easy way foradvertisers to quantify the effectiveness of their IYP listings, nor isthere an efficient way for IYP providers and listing agents tocapitalize on positive lead generation resulting from IYP listings.

In addition, paid search sites are struggling to unlock the profits oflocal searches. There is a consumer need for relevant localizedinformation. IYP providers want to capitalize on the success andadoption rates of CPC marketing in relation to IYP listings.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system topology.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing software included in a user computer,a listing provider server, and a telephony server computer.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of an initial portion of a process ofestablishing a duplex voice communications session.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of a portion of a process of establishing aduplex voice communications session in which a user selected merchant isnotified of a user's request to speak with the merchant.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a portion of a process of establishing aduplex voice communications session in which multiple merchants may besequentially notified of a user's request to speak with a merchant.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a portion of a process of establishing aduplex voice communications session in which multiple merchants may besimultaneously notified of a user's request to speak with a merchant.

FIG. 7 a flow chart of the actions taken in completing a duplex voicecommunication call between a user and a merchant.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Throughout this description, the embodiments and examples shown shouldbe considered as exemplars, rather than limitations on the apparatus andmethods of the invention.

A System

Referring now to FIG. 1 there is shown a block diagram of a systemtopology 100. The system topology 100 includes a user computer 110, auser telephone 115, a data network 120, a listing provider server 130, atelephony server 140, a soft switch 145, a voice network 150, and anumber of merchant telephones 161, 162, 163.

The user computer 110 may be a general purpose personal computer. Theuser computer 110 may include a system unit 112, an output device, suchas a display 118, and one or more input devices, such as, for example, akeyboard 114, a mouse 116, a track ball, a pen or stylus, a touch pad, adata glove, and others.

The user computer 110 may have a hard disk drive 117 and/or otherstorage devices included therein or otherwise coupled with or accessibleto the system unit 112. As used herein a storage device is a device thatincludes and may be used to read from and write to a storage medium.Storage devices include, hard disk drives, digital versatile disk (DVD)drives, compact disk (CD) drives, microdrives, flash memory devices, andothers. Storage media are machine readable and include, for example,magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks and tape; optical mediasuch as CDs and DVDs; flash memory cards; and other storage media.

The system unit 112 may have included therein a motherboard having aprocessor and memory, such as, for example, random access memory (RAM),as well as controller devices, add-on boards, interface boards, andother devices, such as for example, a graphics adapter, a networkinterface card (NIC), a sound card, and others.

The user computer 110 may be a computing device such as, for example, apersonal computer, computer workstation, server, portable computer,notebook computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), computing tablet,two-way messaging device (e.g., Blackberry™), smart display terminal,personal video recorder (PVR), set-top box, cellular telephone,satellite telephone, digital camera, digital music device such as, forexample, an MP3 player, and others. The user computer 110 may also be ahome appliance such as a television, a refrigerator, and others.

The user computer 110 may run an operating system, such as, for example,a version of the Microsoft Windows operating system, Linux, Unix, AppleMAC OS, Palm OS, and others.

The user computer 110 connects with and communicates on the data network120 and may include an interface therefore. The user computer 110 mayinclude a NIC, a modem or other device that supports communications ondata network 120. The communications supported by the user computer 110may adhere to one or more communications standards. The communicationsstandards may include wired and wireless communications protocols, suchas, for example, one or more versions of the User Datagram Protocol(UDP), the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and the InternetProtocol (IP), the 10 and/or 40 Gigabit Ethernet standards, the FibreChannel standards, one or more varieties of the IEEE 802 standards,including 802.3 Ethernet, 802.11 Wi-Fi and 802.16 WiMAX, AsynchronousTransfer Mode (ATM), X.25, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN),token ring, frame relay, Point to Point Protocol (PPP), FiberDistributed Data Interface (FDDI); proprietary protocols; and otherprotocols. Other communications standards supported by user computer 110may include Universal Serial Bus (USB), IEEE 1394 commonly known asFireWire and i.link, BlueTooth, and ZigBee. The user computer 110 may becoupled with a modem, gateway or router to connect with and communicateon the data network 120.

The user computer 110 may comprise an assembly of devices, such as atelevision and a set-top box or PVR which interfaces to the data network120.

The data network 120 provides network communications support for theuser computer 110 to interact with other devices, including the listingprovider server 130 and the telephony server 140. The data network 120is packet-switched and may comprise one or more public and/or privatedata networks and may include one or more Local Area Networks (LANS),Wide Area Networks (WANs), Storage Area Networks (SANs). The datanetwork 120 may include or be the Internet and may utilize the InternetProtocol.

The listing provider server 130 may be a typical web server thatincludes a processor, memory and storage devices. The listing providerserver 130 includes a communications interface that allows listingprovider server 130 to communicate with user computer 110, telephonyserver 140 and other computing devices over the data network 120 usingone or more of the communications protocols described above. Thecommunications interface may be a NIC. The listing provider server 130serves Internet web pages and related data, Internet yellow pages (IYP)listings, Internet search results, and/or other listings to usercomputer 110 and other computing devices. The listing provider server130 is a web server and may include software to be one or more of anapplication server, graphics server, database server, transactionserver, and others. The listing provider server 130 may run an operatingsystem, such as, for example, a version of the Microsoft Windowsoperating system, Linux, Unix, Apple MAC OS, and others.

Although only one listing provider server 130 is shown, the listingprovider server 130 may represent any number of web servers. The listingprovider server 130 may represent a group of servers, network capablestorage devices, routers, gateways and other communications devices. Inaddition, the listing provider server 130 may be coupled with orcommunicate over data network 120 with other servers that providetelephone and other directories, databases and/or other services.

The telephony server 140 may be a specialized server that includes aprocessor, memory and storage devices. The telephony server 140 includesa communications interface that allows telephony server 140 tocommunicate with user computer 110, listing provider server 130, andother computing devices over the data network 120 using one or more ofthe communications protocols described above. The communicationsinterface may be a NIC.

Although only one telephony server 140 is shown, the telephony server140 represents any number of web servers. The listing telephony server140 may represent a group of servers, network capable storage devices,routers, gateways, switches and other communications devices. Inaddition, the telephony server 140 may be coupled with or communicateover data network 120 with other servers that provide telephone andother directories, databases and/or other services.

In one embodiment, the listing provider server 130 and the telephonyserver 140 may be combined as a single device or group of devices.

The telephony server 140 may be coupled with soft switch 145. Thetelephony server 140 may include a telecommunications interface thatallows telephony server 140 to communicate with soft switch 145. Thesoft switch 145 may serve as a voice switch, telephony switch, dataswitch, circuit switch, an IP switch, and/or a combination of two ormore of these. The soft switch 145 serves as an interface betweeninformation communicated between the packet-switched data network 120provided via telephony server 140 and the voice network 150. The softswitch 145 may be compliant with one or more of the communicationsstandards described above, as well as one or more additionalcommunications standards including the session initiation protocol(SIP), H.323, the media gateway control protocol (MGCP), also known asmegaco, RFC-3015 and H.248), the session announcement protocol (SAP),the session description protocol (SDP), the simple gateway controlprotocol (SGCP), the skinny client control protocol (SCCP) and otherprotocols. The soft switch 145 may be compliant with one or moretelecommunications standards such as SS6 and SS7 described below. Thesoft switch 145 is compatible with the voice network 150, and has theability to set up and tear down telephone connections in the voicenetwork 150.

The soft switch 145 may serve as a signaling gateway platform (SGP),which is an intelligent service exchange node that integrates servicesbetween circuit switched and packet switched networks. In anotherembodiment, a gateway, not shown, may be included between the softswitch 145 and the voice network 150. The soft switch 145 and thetelephony server 140 may be combined as a single device or group ofdevices. In another embodiment, the soft switch 145, the telephonyserver 140, and the listing provider server 130 may be combined as asingle device or group of devices.

The voice network 150 is a common carrier network which providestelephone service between users. The voice network 150 may be or includea circuit switching network, a packet switching network, a data network,an IP telephony network, or include or be a combination thereof. Thevoice network 150 may be the public switched telephone network (PSTN).The voice network 150 may operate according to one or more telephonystandards such as, for example, Common Channel Interoffice Signaling(CCIS), Common Channel Signaling 7 (C7), Signaling System 6 (SS6), VoiceOver Internet Protocol (VOIP), and Signaling System 7 (SS7) standards.The voice network 150 may also operate according to one or more of thecommunications standards, the additional communications standardsdescribed above, and/or other communications standards.

The user telephone 115 and merchant telephones 161, 162 and 163 may beanalog telephones connected to the voice network 150. The user telephone115 and merchant telephones 161, 162 and 163 may be digital devices forproviding voice communications, such as, for example, SIP or MGCPenabled telephone sets. The user telephone 115 and merchant telephones161, 162 and 163 may also be wireless voice communications devices suchas cellular telephones or other mobile telephones. As used herein theterms “telephone” and “phone” refer to analog telephones, digitaltelephones, cellular telephones, satellite telephones, IP telephones,and telephones supporting VOIP, SIP, MGCP and other telephony protocols.There may be one or more user telephones 115 located proximate to theuser computer 110 and/or in a location under common control of the userof the user computer 115. Although only three merchant telephones 161,163 and 163 are shown, an unlimited number of merchants havingtelephones may be included in the system topology 100. Although notshown, the merchants included in the topology 100 may have in additionto or in place of the merchant telephones 161, 162, and 163 othercomputing devices which are capable of allowing a merchant to receivedata and/or voice communications from and/or send data and/or voicecommunications to one or more user telephones 115 and/or the telephonyserver 140.

The hardware and software and its functions may be distributed such thatsome components are performed by user computer 110, the listing providerserver 130, the telephony server 140, the soft switch 145, and/orothers. The processes described herein may be embodied in whole or inpart in software which operates on the listing provider server 130, thetelephony server 140 and/or the soft switch 145 and operates inconjunction with the user computer 110, the merchant telephones 161, 162and 163, and the user telephone 115. When implemented in software, thesoftware may be one or more of or a combination of application programs,applets (e.g., a Java applet), browser plug-ins, a COM objects, dynamiclinked libraries (DLLs), scripts, subroutines, operating systemcomponents or services, terminate and stay resident (TSR) programs,and/or other software entities. Some or all of the software may bestored on storage media included in or accessible to the devices shownin topology 100. Some of the software may be stored on fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), programmable logic devices (PLDs) and programmablelogic arrays (PLAs) included in one or more of the devices shown intopology 100. The devices shown in topology 100 may include variousspecialized units, circuits, software and interfaces for providing theprocesses described herein.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing software included in the user computer110, the listing provider server 130, and the telephony server computer140. To achieve the reverse billing in online search processes describedherein, the user computer 110 may include and execute an operatingsystem and communications software 216 which support user communicationover data network 120 via web browser software 210. Web browser softwaremay be a dedicated Internet browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorerand Mozilla Firefox, may be part of an Internet software bundle such asNetscape Communicator, may be an online access program that providessupport for Internet browsing such as America Online and NetZero, or maybe another application program that allows for Internet browsing. Theweb browser software 210 and operating system and communication software212 may be stored on a storage device included in, coupled with orotherwise accessible to the user computer 210, such as, for example,hard disk 117. The web browser software 210 may provide support forvarious communications over data network 120 such as, for example, theHyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP); may support multimedia displaystandards that may include mark-up languages such as the Hyper-TextMarkup Language (HTML), the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and others;and may support executable applets and other programming techniques suchas the Microsoft .NET framework and Java.

The listing provider server 130 may include and execute an operatingsystem and communications software 224 which support communication overdata network 120 by web server software 210 and listing server software222. The listing server software 222 and web server software 220 may becombined as a single software component. The listing server software mayreceive and respond to a user request for an IYP search or other listingof merchants or otherwise respond to an online search for a product,merchant or service. The listing server software may include and/or haveaccess to one or more databases of merchant information which may beavailable locally to or remotely from the listing provider server 130.The response prepared by the listing server software 222 includes asoftware link, object, applet, hook or other software entity that allowsthe user of user computer 110 to initiate a duplex voice communicationsession with a merchant by clicking on or otherwise activating the link.The link is referred to herein as a “user activatable link.” The useractivatable link may be in HTML and may cause a Common Gateway Interface(CGI) script to be executed. The CGI script may be written using C,Perl, Java, Visual Basic, or other programming language. The useractivatable link may be activated by a user using an input device toselect the text, graphic, button or other user interface item associatedwith the merchant. The user activatable link, which may include one ormore CGI scripts, causes the telephony software 230 on telephony server140 to initiate the process beginning in block 322 described in FIG. 3below.

The telephony server 140 may include operating system and communicationssoftware 232 and telephony software 230. When the user at user computer110 clicks on or otherwise activates a user activatable link to initiatea duplex voice communication session with a merchant, the request forthe duplex voice communication session is sent to and handled by thetelephony server software 230. As used herein, the term “duplex voicecommunications” refers to voice communications which are in twodirections so that each of two parties to a call can speak to the otherparty concurrently. As used herein the term “session” means a connectionthat is established between two entities that remains open untilterminated or torn down. Duplex voice communication sessions aretraditionally made over the voice network 150, but as used herein may bemade over one or both of the data network 120 and the voice network 150.

A Process

Referring now to FIG. 3 there is shown a flow chart of an initialportion of a process by which a duplex voice communications session isestablished. A user may search for a merchant in a geographic area usinga web browser. As used herein, a “user” is any person who uses anInternet browser. As used herein, a “merchant” includes any person orentity offering a product or service, including individuals, companies,corporations, professionals, tradesmen, nonprofit entity, governmententity, restaurants, and professionals. Examples of merchants include:painters, plumbers, electricians, restaurants, grocery stores, cardshops, sporting goods stores, automotive repair shops, lawyers,accountants, doctors, and many others. Merchants may be groupedaccording to one or more characteristics, including the product orservice they provide and the geographic region in which they arelocated, as in traditional yellow pages.

A user may conduct an online or Internet search for a good, product,service or merchant in a geographic area, or other similar search. Theonline search may be made using key words, that is, terms or phrasesthat describe the good, product, service or merchant desired to belocated. The online search may be made by accessing an online listing orsearch provider which shall be referred to herein collectively aslisting providers. Listing providers as used herein include, IYPwebsites, such as, for example, smartpages.com,yellowpages.superpages.com, and switchboard.com; Internet search enginessuch as, for example, Google at google.com or Yahoo at yahoo.com; andaccessing other on-line search services and listing providers. An IYPwebsite or other listing provider website may provide a user interfacethat allows a user to click on or otherwise select headings for a kindof merchant and a geographical designation such as a city, county and/orstate or an associated telephone area code or zip code. The IYPinterface may allow a user to enter a kind of merchant and geographicalinformation in text entry boxes. Similarly, when specifying the onlinesearch using an Internet search engine, the user may type in a kind ofmerchant and geographical information in the search text entry box. Theuser may initiate the search by clicking on a “search” or “go” button orother user interface item.

The listing provider receives a user specified merchant search request,as shown in block 302. The listing provider prepares a group of one ormore merchants responsive to the user specified merchant request, asshown in block 304. The listing provider prepares search resultsincluding a user activatable link to establish a duplex voicecommunication session between the user and one of the group of one ormore merchants, as shown in block 306. The link may be a simple HTTPlink included in a web page of search results. The user activatable linkmay be a software link, object, applet, hook or other software entitythat allows a user to request establishment of a voice communicationsession, such as an HTML link that may include one or more CGI scripts.The user activatable link may provide a graphical user interface orother user interface to allow a user specify certain characteristics ofa desired merchant, such as, for example, a merchant that isgeographically closest, willing to perform a service within a userspecified or selectable price range, immediately available or soonestavailable, and other characteristics.

The user receives and views the search results in a web browser, asshown in block 308. The user selects a search result entry to cause atelephone call to be established with one of the group of merchants, asshown in block 310. The user selection may be made by the user via amouse or other input device to click on text, an icon, a button or otheruser interface item, or to otherwise activate a user activatable linkassociated with a specific merchant or a user activatable linkassociated with a generic description of a merchant. (described below)

The telephony server 140 receives a request from the user to cause aduplex voice communication session to be established with one of themerchants, as shown in block 320. The telephony server 140 causes afirst voice communication leg to be established with a phone numberassociated with the user, as shown in block 322. As part of thefunctionality of block 322 or otherwise in response to block 320, thetelephony server 140 may request or retrieve the user's telephonenumber. The user's telephone number may be obtained during an earliersubscription to the listing provider website, such as, for example, whenthe user established a Yahoo email account or registered as a user of alisting provider, search engine or other website. As such, the user'stelephone number may be retrieved from a cookie stored by the user'sInternet browser or from a database or other information stored andassociated with the user by the listing provider server 130 or thetelephony server 140. If the user's telephone number was not earlierprovided, the telephony server 140 may request the user's telephonenumber via a pop-up window or other user interface technique. The user'stelephone number may be the telephone number of user telephone 115adjacent the user computer 110, of a mobile telephone of the user, orother telephone number.

The first voice communication leg may be established by the telephonyserver 140 sending a call initiation signal to the soft switch 145. Thecall initiation signal instructs the soft switch 145 to initiate asingle leg telephone call with the user's telephone number.

The flow of actions then continues with block 410 in FIG. 4, block 510in FIG. 5 or block 610 in FIG. 6, depending on the embodiment.

While the user is waiting for a call with a merchant to be established(before or after block 322) and while the processing described in FIGS.4, 5, and 6 proceeds, an audio, video or multimedia advertisement may beplayed or displayed to a user. An audio advertisement may be playedwhile the user is on the phone waiting for a merchant to accept theoffer. The advertisement may be may be provided on the user's computeras a graphic, a web page, a video, or other single media or multi-mediaadvertisement. The advertisement may be related to the search made bythe user, may be based on demographics associated with geographicinformation included in the search, may be based on demographicsassociated with the user's IP address or telephone number, and may bewholly unrelated to the user or the search.

Referring now to FIG. 4 there is shown a flow of actions taken innotifying a user selected merchant of a user's request to speak with themerchant. In this embodiment, one or more specific merchant entriesincluded in the search results (see block 306) have a user activatablelink associated therewith, and the user may cause a telephone session tobe initiated with a user selected merchant by selecting and activating auser activatable link to a specific merchant. If the merchant acceptsthe call, the user is connected with the merchant, and the costs for thetelephone call and automatic call initiation service are billed to themerchant as a definite fee. In this embodiment, users may easily cause atelephone call to be established automatically with a merchant the userhas proactively selected. The call establishing technology is invisibleto the web user. This process removes the need for a user to pick up atelephone and call a merchant after making an Internet search. Thisprocess allows listing providers the ability to track lead generationperformance.

More specifically, referring now to block 410, the telephony server 140generates a notice to the user selected merchant. The notice includes anoffer for the selected merchant to pay a definite fee in exchange forestablishment of a duplex voice communication session with the user. Thedefinite fee is an exact, known fee the merchant agrees to pay for thecall regardless of the length of the call or whether the call results ina purchase, order, contract, transaction, or anything beneficial to themerchant. Once the merchant accepts the call, the definite fee known tothe merchant is fixed. For example, the definite fee may be $1.00,$1.50, $2.00, $5.00, etc. In some circumstances, the amount of timeallowed for accepting should be kept low to provide the most customerpleasing experience possible to users of the call initiation system. Assuch, the notice may inform the merchant of an amount of time the offerremains available (or, conversely, expires), such as, for example, 20seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, etc. In another embodiment,the definite fee for acceptance increases over time to serve to motivatethe merchant to more quickly accept the bid, thus improving thecustomer's experience with the call initiation system. For example, thenotice may state that the definite fee is $1.00 if the merchant acceptsthe offer within 30 seconds, to be increased by $1.00 every 10 secondsafter 30 seconds, with the offer expiring after one minute.

In another embodiment, the notice may include a message stating that thecall has been placed using a service offered by a listing provider. Inthis embodiment, the definite fee for establishing the telephone callmay be paid by the listing provider. In this way, the brand or namerecognition of the listing provider is strengthened by alertingmerchants to the services provided by the listing provider. The merchantmay be notified in the message that the listing provider is paying forthe costs of connecting the call. (In this embodiment, the notice doesnot include an offer to the merchant to accept the call and pay adefinite fee for the lead.)

The notice may be sent in a variety of different ways. The notice may beprovided via the data network 120 and/or via the voice network 150. Thenotice may be sent via a voice network leg to the merchant's analogtelephone or cellular telephone, via voice network to the merchant'spersonal computer or other computing device, via both the voice and datanetwork to the merchant's IP telephone (such as an SIP or MGCPtelephone), to a merchant's specialized device on an analog line via thevoice network, to the merchant's pager or Blackberry device via thevoice network, and in other ways. The notice may be, for example anautomated voice solicitation provided via a voice network leg to themerchant, may be an email note, may be a test message, and others.

The telephony server determines whether the selected merchant hasaccepted the offer presented in the notice, as shown in block 412. Theacceptance of the offer may be a voice notification, via a Dual ToneMulti-Frequency (DTMF) based notification (also known as touch tones),or other form of notification which the telephony server 140 can receiveand properly interpret. The telephony server 140 may include voicerecognition software to process the acceptance. Other forms ofacceptance include email, Internet message, cellular telephone textmessage, and other communications from a computing device.

The flow of actions continues based on whether the merchant accepted theoffer, as shown in block 416. If the offer is not accepted by the userselected merchant, as shown in blocks 416 and 418, the telephony server140 notifies the user that the selected merchant declined the call. Thisuser notification may be made by audio message on the alreadyestablished first voice communication leg (see block 322), via a webpage, via a pop up window, and in other ways. The flow of actions maycontinue at block 308, discussed above. The first voice communicationleg may be torn down at this point.

When the offer is accepted, as shown in blocks 416 and 420, thetelephony server 140 designates the accepting merchant for the duplexvoice communication session with the user. The telephony server 140designates the accepting merchant for the duplex voice communicationsession with the user, as shown in block 420. The merchant may thenparticipate in a voice telephone call with the user and may reap thebenefits of the lead generated by the user's Internet or IYP search. Theflow of actions continues with bock 710 of FIG. 7.

In one embodiment, the listing provider includes all of the group ofmerchants in search results to be provided to the user. In thisembodiment, one or a small subgroup of the group of merchants in thesearch results may have a user activatable link associated with it.Merchants may be allowed to pay and/or bid for placement in thesubgroup. The subgroup may be, for example, from two to six or moremerchants in size.

In another embodiment, in response to receiving a user request for alisting of merchants in a geographic area, a listing or search resultsthat includes a generic merchant description having a user activatablelink associated therewith is provided to the user. The user may cause atelephone session to be initiated with a merchant by clicking on orotherwise activating the user activatable link. The costs for thetelephone call and automatic call initiation service are billed as adefinite fee to the merchant accepting the call with the user. In thisembodiment, the listing provider includes in the search results ageneric description reflecting the contents of the group of merchants.Example generic descriptions include, for example,

a. “Bonded plumbers in zip code 12345”

b. “Qualified painters in SomeCity, SomeState”

c. “Certified public accountants in the 123 area code”

d. “Italian restaurants within 5 miles of 123 Main Street, SomeCity,SomeState”

e. “Estate planning attorneys in zip code 12345.”

In this embodiment, the search results may include the genericdescription as well as a list of some or all of the group of merchants.However, in this embodiment, only the generic description may include auser activatable link to establish a duplex voice communication sessionbetween the user and one of the group of merchants. The genericdescription may appear at the top of the search results, adjacent to thesearch results on the same web page, and/or may appear in a pop-upwindow. Instructions may be provided near the generic descriptioninstructing the user to click on the generic description and/or an icon,button or other user interface item to initiate a telephone call with ageographically desirable merchant ready, willing and able to provide theservice or goods desired.

The flow of actions then continues with block 510 of FIG. 5 or block 610of FIG. 6, depending on the embodiment. The flow of actions shown inFIG. 5 describes a process for sequentially, iteratively seeking amerchant to accept a call with the user to respond to the user'srequest. This embodiment may be referred to as sequential bid dialing orsequential notification. The flow of actions shown in FIG. 6 describes aprocess for simultaneously seeking a merchant to accept a call with theuser to respond to the user's request. This embodiment may be referredto as simultaneous bid dialing, parallel bid dialing, simultaneousnotification, and parallel notification.

As with FIG. 4, in another embodiment of FIGS. 5 and 6, the notice mayinclude a message stating that the call has been placed using a serviceoffered by a listing provider. In this embodiment, the definite fee forestablishing the telephone call may be paid by the listing provider. Inthis way, the brand or name recognition of the listing provider isstrengthened by alerting merchants to the services provided by thelisting provider. The merchant may be notified in the message that thelisting provider is paying for the costs of connecting the call. (Inthese embodiments, the notice does not include an offer to the merchantto accept the call and pay a definite fee for the lead.)

Referring now to the flow of actions in FIG. 5, a notice including anoffer to handle the user's telephone call is sent sequentially to onemerchant at a time. The offer is made to each of the merchants in thegroup of merchants until either the offer is accepted or has beenprovided to all of the merchants in the group. More specifically, thetelephony server 140 selects one of the merchants from the group ofmerchants, as shown in block 510. This selection may be made in avariety of ways based on one or more of a variety of criteria, such as,for example: randomly in round robin among the entire group ofmerchants; in priority order based on geographic closeness of themerchant to the user; in order of customer satisfaction data associatedwith the merchant; in an order based on paid placement in which themerchants may pay and/or bid to be the first in the group or toward thetop of the group; and others.

The telephony server 140 generates a notice to the selected merchant, asshown in block 512. The notice includes an offer for the selectedmerchant to pay a definite fee in exchange for establishment of a duplexvoice communication session with the user. For example, the definite feemay be $1.00, $1.50, $2.00, $5.00, etc. In some circumstances, theamount of time allowed for accepting should be kept low to provide themost customer pleasing experience possible to users of the callinitiation system. As such, the notice may inform the merchant of anamount of time the offer remains available (or, conversely, after whichit expires), such as, for example, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1minute, etc. In another embodiment, the definite fee for acceptanceincreases over time to serve to motivate the merchant to more quicklyaccept the bid, thus improving the customer's experience with the callinitiation system. For example, the notice may state that the definitefee is $1.00 if the merchant accepts the offer within 30 seconds, to beincreased by $1.00 every 10 seconds after 30 seconds, with the offerexpiring after one minute.

The notice may be sent in a variety of different ways such as thosedescribed above regarding block 410 of FIG. 4. The notice may be, forexample an automated voice solicitation provided via a voice network legto the merchant.

The telephony server determines whether the selected merchant hasaccepted the offer presented in the notice, as shown in block 514. Theacceptance of the offer may be a voice notification, via a Dual ToneMulti-Frequency (DTMF) based notification (also known as touch tones),or other form of notification which the telephony server 140 can receiveand properly interpret. The telephony server 140 may include voicerecognition software to process the acceptance. Other forms ofacceptance include email, Internet message, cellular telephone textmessage, and other communications from a computing device.

The flow of actions continues based on whether the merchant accepted theoffer, as shown in block 516. If the offer is not accepted by theselected merchant, as shown in blocks 516 and 518, the telephony server140 selects the next merchant from the group of merchants. As aboveregarding block 510, the next merchant made be determined in variousways based on one or more of a variety of criteria. The flow of actionsloops to block 512, discussed above. The looping through blocks 512,514, 516 and 518 continues until a merchant accepts the offer to receivethe call for a definite fee or until the group of merchants isexhausted.

When the offer is accepted by a merchant, as shown in blocks 516 and520, the telephony server 140 designates the accepting merchant for theduplex voice communication session with the user. As a result, a duplexvoice communication session is established between the user and thedesignated merchant as shown beginning with block 710 of FIG. 7. Themerchant participates in a voice telephone call with the user and mayreap the benefits of the lead generated by the user's Internet or IYPsearch.

Referring now to the flow of actions shown in FIG. 6, the notice may besent to one or more of the merchants in the group of merchantssimultaneously, meaning at about the same time. In simultaneous bidcalling, there is competitive bidding between the selected merchants forthe opportunity to obtain the call with the user. In one embodiment, thefirst in time of the merchants to accept a definite offer fee is thedesignated merchant. In another embodiment, the merchant making thehighest bid within a prescribed amount of time wins. The amount of timeprovided for bidding may be 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 90seconds, etc. In some circumstances, the amount of time allowed forbidding should be kept low to provide the most customer pleasingexperience possible.

More specifically, in simultaneous notification with simultaneousbidding, the telephony server 140 generates a notice to all of themerchants in the group of merchants, as shown in block 610. The noticeis sent simultaneously, at the same time, or as close in time aspracticably achievable. The notice may be sent as described aboveregarding block 410. The notice may state something to the effect thatto be connected via a duplex telephone call with an Internet userinterested in the services or goods offered by the merchant, themerchant must accept an offer. The notice also provides instructionsand/or the rules to be followed in accepting the offer. The offer may bea made according to various rules, such as, for example, first in timeto respond, the largest bid made with in a specified time, and others.

One example notice states the offer is being sent to a group ofmerchants, and the first merchant to agree to pay a definite fee inexchange for establishment of a duplex voice communication session withthe user will be awarded the opportunity to participate in the telephonecall with the user. The definite fee may be $1.00, $1.50, $2.00, $5.00,etc. To increase the merchant's chances of being awarded the call withthe user, the merchant should respond as quickly as possible.

Another example notice states that the offer is being sent to a group ofmerchants, that the offer is for a limited time, that the offer must beequal to or greater than a minimum or starting bid amount, that themerchant accepting the offer placing the largest bid during the timeperiod will be awarded the opportunity to participate in the telephonecall with the user. For example, the limited time may be 20 seconds, 30seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, etc.; and the minimum or starting fee maybe $1.00, $1.50, $2.00, $5.00, etc. To increase the merchant's chancesof being awarded the call with the user, the merchant can provide anacceptance with a bid significantly larger than the starting bid. Thismay be referred to as variable rate billing, even though the end resultis a definite fee to be paid by the merchant when the telephone callwith the user is established.

In a more advanced implementation, bidding updates may be provided tomembers of the group during regular intervals during the bidding timeperiod. The regular intervals may be for example, every 20 seconds,every 30 seconds, etc. The bidding updates may include the current highbid and the time remaining in the offer. The bidding updates may beprovided via the data network 120 and/or via the voice network 150 suchas, for example, via existing telephone legs on the voice network 150using automated voice generation; via email or text message to themobile telephone, merchant computer or other merchant computing devicevia either the data or the voice network, and other techniques.

According to the process, the telephony server 140 receives one or moreacceptances from merchants in the group of merchants, as shown in block612. The telephony server designates one of the accepting merchants forthe duplex voice communication session with the user, as shown in block614. The telephony server may designate an accepting merchant based onone or a combination of metrics, such, for example, first in time torespond, largest bid received in a prescribed period of time such as,for example, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 90 seconds, etc. The flowof actions continues with block 710 of FIG. 7.

Referring now to FIG. 7, there is shown a flow of the actions taken incompleting a duplex voice communication call between the user and adesignated merchant. After a merchant has been designated according tothe processes described in FIGS. 3, 4, 5 and 6, the telephony server 140causes the first voice communication leg and a second voicecommunication leg to a phone number associated with the designatedmerchant to be bridged, as shown in block 710. As a result, a duplexvoice communication session is established between the user and thedesignated merchant. The second voice communication leg may alreadyexist as it may have been the communications medium used by thetelephony server 140 to deliver the notice and receive the acceptance.If the second leg has not yet been established, the telephony servercauses the second telecommunications leg to be established with thedesignated merchant. The second voice communication leg may beestablished by the telephony server 140 sending a call initiation signalto the soft switch 145. The call initiation signal instructs the softswitch 145 to initiate a single leg telephone call with the designatedmerchant's telephone number. The first and second voice communicationlegs are bridged to establish duplex telecommunications between the userand the designated merchant. The bridging of the first and second voicecommunications legs may be achieved by the telephony server 140 sendinginstructions to the soft switch 145 to bridge the first and second voicecommunication legs. The merchant and the user may then discuss theuser's needs and how the merchant may fulfill the user's requirements.For example, the user may make a dinner reservation, order food to bedelivered, make a haircut appointment, learn whether an item is in stockat a store, obtain a quote for a service, purchase an item from themerchant, etc.

The costs of the process of establishing a phone call between a user anda merchant may be born by the designated merchant in the form of thedefinite fee. In one embodiment, the telephony server 140 causes thedefinite fee to be billed to the designated merchant, as shown in block712. The definite fee may be billed to the designated merchant's localtelephone account as an enhanced service. To achieve this, the telephonyserver 140 provides billing information including the definite fee tothe local exchange carrier (LEC) associated with the merchant asdetermined by the merchant's telephone number. The billing informationpassed to the LEC includes the originating and destination telephonenumbers, the definite fee. The billing may be achieved using a CarrierAccess Billing System (CABS) and may be performed in a manner similar tothat of a collect call. Telephony server 140 may validate the merchanttelephone number with a telephony or carrier database.

In another embodiment, when the listing provider pays the fee forestablishing the user/merchant telephone call, block 712 is replaced bycharging the definite fee for establishing the telephone call to thelisting provider.

With regard to FIGS. 4, 5, 6 and 7, additional and fewer steps may betaken, and the steps as shown may be combined, further refined andrearranged to achieve the process described herein. For example step 322may be performed immediately before step 710, and the second voicecommunication leg to the designated merchant may be established beforethe first voice communication leg to the user is established.

Although exemplary embodiments have been shown and described, it will beapparent to those having ordinary skill in the art that a number ofchanges, modifications, or alterations to the embodiments describedherein may be made. All such changes, modifications and alterationsshould therefore be seen as within the scope of this disclosure.

1. A process performed by a server, the process comprising: (a) theserver receiving a request over a data network from a computing deviceof a user to cause a duplex voice communication session over a voicenetwork to be established between a user telephone associated with auser phone number of the user and a merchant telephone associated with amerchant phone number of a merchant from a group of one or moremerchants capable of providing a good or service specified in therequest, wherein the user telephone is separate and distinct from thecomputing device of the user (b) the server causing a first voicecommunication leg to be made to the user phone number (c) the servergenerating a notice to at least one of the merchants in the group ofmerchants capable of providing the good or service specified in therequest, the notice including an offer to establish the duplex voicecommunication session with the user in exchange for payment of adefinite fee, the generating performed sequentially and repeatedly bythe server for each of the merchants in the group of merchants until theoffer is either accepted by an accepting merchant or the generating hasbeen attempted to all of the merchants in the group of merchants (d) theserver receiving an acceptance of the offer from the accepting merchant(e) the server causing a second voice communication leg to be made tothe accepting merchant at the merchant phone number (f) the servercausing the first voice communication leg and the second voicecommunication leg to be bridged to thereby establish the duplex voicecommunication session over the voice network between the user telephoneassociated with the user phone number of the user and the merchanttelephone associated with the merchant phone number of the acceptingmerchant (g) the server causing the definite fee to appear on a bill fortelephone service of the accepting merchant.
 2. The process of claim 1wherein the generating of step (c) is performed by the server in anorder based on placement payments made by at least one of the merchants.3. The process of claim 1 wherein the generating of step (c) isperformed by the server in a random order.
 4. The process of claim 1wherein the generating of step (c) is performed by the server in anorder based on a geographic closeness of the merchant to the user. 5.The process of claim 1 wherein the request is triggered by the useractivating a user activatable link accessible via a screen displaycoupled with the computing device of the user.
 6. The process of claim 1further comprising, before step (b), the server obtaining the user phonenumber.
 7. The process of claim 1 wherein the request in step (a) ismade as a consequence of the user viewing results of a key word search,the user viewing the results on a display coupled with the usercomputing device.
 8. The process of claim 1 wherein the group of one ormore merchants is provided as a consequence of the user initiating a keyword search via the computing device of the user.
 9. The process ofclaim 1 wherein in step (g) the definite fee appears as a charge for anenhanced service on the designated merchant's bill for telephoneservice.
 10. The process of claim 1 wherein the notice in step (c)comprises at least one from the group including an automated voicesolicitation, an instant text message, and an electronic mail message.11. The process of claim 1 wherein the acceptance in step (d) comprisesone or more from the group including a voice notification, a touch tonebased notification, an instant message, and an email message.
 12. Aprocess performed by a server, the process comprising: (a) the serverreceiving a request over a data network from a computing device of auser to cause a duplex voice communication session over a voice networkto be established between a user telephone associated with a user phonenumber of the user and a merchant telephone associated with a merchantphone number of a merchant from a group of one or more merchants capableof providing a good or service specified in the request, wherein theuser telephone is separate and distinct from the computing device of theuser (b) the server causing a first voice communication leg to be madeto the user phone number (c) the server generating a notice to aplurality of the merchants of the group of merchants capable ofproviding the good or service specified in the request, the generatingperformed for the plurality of the merchants at approximately the sametime, the notice including an offer to establish the duplex voicecommunication session with the user in exchange for payment of adefinite fee (d) the server receiving from a group of at least twoaccepting merchants an acceptance of the offer (e) the server selectingone of the accepting merchants from the group of accepting merchants asthe designated merchant (f) the server causing a second voicecommunication leg to be made to the designated merchant at the merchantphone number (g) the server causing the first voice communication legand the second voice communication leg to be bridged to therebyestablish the duplex voice communication session over the voice networkbetween the user telephone associated with the user phone number of theuser and the merchant telephone associated with the merchant phonenumber of the designated merchant (h) the server causing the definitefee to appear on a bill for telephone service of the designatedmerchant.
 13. The process of claim 12 wherein the selecting of step (e)is based on a first in time of all of the accepting merchants.
 14. Theprocess of claim 12, wherein the selecting in step (e) is based on apaid placement of at least one of the accepting merchants.
 15. Theprocess of claim 12, wherein the selecting in step (e) is based on thegeographic closeness of the accepting merchants to the user.
 16. Theprocess of claim 12, wherein the selecting in step (e) is based oncustomer satisfaction data associated with the accepting merchants. 17.The process of claim 12 wherein the request is triggered by the useractivating a user activatable link accessible via a screen displaycoupled with the computing device of the user.
 18. The process of claim12 further comprising, before step (b), the server obtaining the userphone number.
 19. The process of claim 12 wherein the request in step(a) is made as a consequence of the user viewing results of a key wordsearch, the user viewing the results on a display coupled with the usercomputing device.
 20. The process of claim 12 wherein the group of oneor more merchants is provided as a consequence of the user initiating akey word search via the computing device of the user.
 21. The process ofclaim 12 wherein in step (h) the definite fee appears as a charge for anenhanced service on the designated merchant's bill for telephoneservice.
 22. The process of claim 12 wherein the notice in step (c)comprises at least one from the group comprising an automated voicesolicitation, an instant text message, and an electronic mail message.23. The process of claim 12 wherein the acceptance of the offer in step(d) comprises one or more from the group comprising a voicenotification, a touch tone based notification, an instant message, andan email message.